The past month has been filled with viruses, bacteria, minute insects, and all kinds of parasites. A discovered this microscopic world, and so we have been exploring it together. His first interest was viruses and cells - what viruses are, and what our body and our cells do to combat them. Oooh, he loves that. Then he became interested in bacteria in addition to viruses. Fascinating. Finally, in a book about electron microscopes (he wanted to know how we can see those small things), he discovered micro bugs. Mites, lice, ticks, parasites, nematodes...he wants to know. He loves this stuff.
Over the past week he has started drawing these things on his chalkboard while looking at his books. Animal cells, plant cells, mites, viruses. He has asked for my help with a few things - wanting me to draw a mite so he can then try to draw one too, or asking me to write out a difficult word such as salmonella. But otherwise, he has been doing the drawing and the lettering as he goes this week - and my little guy who loves to spell but doesn't like to write has been happily labeling each thing with small careful letters.
I love watching how he thinks and learns and becomes so interested in things. I try to remember to just hop on board and go with his interest - and each time we ALL learn something new.
Here are two of his favorite books this week:
Bill Nye the Science Guy's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs
by Bill Nye
Micro Bugs (Up Close)
by Paul Harrison
So,so clever...Xxx
ReplyDeleteHey Denise, we're both big on book recommendations this week!
ReplyDeleteIt is so cool to just put the info. out there and let them run with it. ( Owen isn't big on writing letters yet either.)We enjoyed the book What's Eating You? about parasites by Nicola Davies- gross but interesting!!
Sounds like fun stuff! My son loves the Usborne Book about the Body and always has so many questions about how the body fights germs. I'm sure he would be fascinated by these books you've mentioned in a couple of years. I'm glad you're not sick- when I saw the title of your post, my initial thought was that you were.
ReplyDeleteHow about the parasite Giardia...??? Oh boy that is what we are talking about at home...Rick ended up with it after running the Iditarod...not all communities are careful about their water...and well I guess Rick picked it up along the trail...poor guy! He is struggling.
ReplyDeleteGotta love all those bugs that are out there to be swallowed. There was some thought that he might have a mild case of salmonella...ugh!
WE are looking forward to a healthy Rick. He is being treated with metronidazole...which is what he gives his dogs when they are training...interesting, huh?
Anyways...very cool blog entry...and parasites are pretty fun to study!
He sounds like such a boy! It looks like he had a good time learning about all these nasty little things, though. :)
ReplyDeleteGotta look those books up.
ReplyDeleteGroovy germ fun!
ReplyDeleteHey Denise I gotta share with you that my son Layne did a TV spot with Bill Nye a while back (for the SLC olympics). He was his idol at the time, so it was just so much fun. He has done several other TV spots, one a gardening show-Smart Gardening on vermicomposting and from page of the newspaper. I'm sure there's more, but that's beside the point. It was about Bill Nye.
Thank you for the book recommendations! Leonardo is very interested in this subject, too.
ReplyDeleteGreat book recommendations! Liam's latest love is dinosaurs, so we're on that track right now, but maybe I'll try to steer him in this direction soon.
ReplyDeleteThose are some great drawings A made. I feel oh-so-behind, or perhaps am just now seeing that there is a vast difference between 4 years old and 5. Liam's idea of doing art right now is to half-heartedly scribble a couple of faint lines on a sheet of paper!
Oh my gosh! I remember vividly the day I learned about the 1-celled organisms (amoebas, paramecia, euglenas, etc.) I was so fascinated by their existence and spent hours drawing them for my family, teaching them all about each one and how they moved around. Good stuff.
ReplyDeletegerms can be fun i see! you should all come study the ones giving me the flu right now! LOL!
ReplyDeleteBill Nye is one of our favorite people on earth...too bad we don't watch TV anymore... But I like to see that he has a book
ReplyDelete